Walter Finch
SPANISH business is betting big on the British economy – but leaders are demanding Prime Minister Keir Starmer opens up the UK labour market to foreign workers at a time of an acute immigration surge.
The latest ‘business climate barometer’ from the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in the United Kingdom paints a picture of optimism among industry chiefs from Spain.
Nearly half of the Spanish companies surveyed reported that they are banking on increasing investments, employment, and revenue from their UK businesses in the coming year, according to the report.
Since records began in 1993, Spain has directed nearly €170 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) towards the UK, accounting for 18% of its total global FDI.
This makes the UK Spain’s top investment market overall, accounting for the creation of around 133,000 jobs in 2022 – 0.4% of total nationwide employment.
But one of the biggest gripes among Spanish companies in the UK (37%) has been the difficulty in finding the right staff and a skills mismatch among British workers – a 10% rise year-on-year.
Around a further 40% agreed that the human capital available in the UK labour market doesn’t meet their training and skill requirements.
Spanish business leaders in the UK have called on the Labour government to ‘facilitate the hiring of workers from third countries, particularly Europe, by making it simpler to obtain visas’, according to the report.
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They have also criticised the lack of ‘incentives to firms to facilitate investment in employee training and upskilling.’
“Mobility continues to be a problem and it seems that it will continue to be for a while, but even so some elements can be streamlined and facilitated,” said Eduardo Barrachina, the president of the chamber, at the presentation of the annual report in London.
It has been reported that both Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz and Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo raised the matter with their British counterparts in two recent visits to London.
Spanish trade secretary, Amparo López Senovilla, once again put worker mobility on the table in a meeting held this Tuesday with her British counterpart.
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“It is an issue that clearly concerns us, they are also aware of this concern,” she said after the meeting.
“All issues relating to immigration are sensitive issues and, therefore, must be dealt with in a broader context than just a commercial one, but it is clearly an issue of interest to both governments and we hope to find a solution.”
Yet the report identifies that the Labour government is planning to take the exact opposite tack after migration figures for from June hit a 728,000 inflow – after 906,000 arrived in 2023.
Instead, the British government plans to implement a new immigration plan that will reduce the UK’s dependence on foreign skilled workers and aim to upgrade the skills of young British talent.
“The new government has already announced that businesses violating work visa rules will face a ban on hiring employees from abroad,” the report states.
